


we focus on the trivial things (because the rest is too heavy)

by girlsarewolves



Category: The Covenant (2006)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"From now on, I'm dating older guys. Responsible guys." Kate wiped her tears away before they could really fall, and curled up on Sarah's bed, her back against Sarah's side. "You should, too."</p><p>It might hurt less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we focus on the trivial things (because the rest is too heavy)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure why I'm writing fic during the early hours of the morning for a movie I think is silly, ridiculous fluff, but I wanted to write female friendship fic, and this is the fandom my inspiration gave me. Could be seen as pre-femslash, I wrote it ambiguously so it could be seen either way.
> 
> Minor content warning for brief mention of an older man forcefully grabbing a younger woman.

* * *

It's only four months after Chase disappears when Kate and Pogue have a blowout.  
  
Again.  
  
Everything is good at first; Sarah thinks that maybe this will ultimately be good for them. Now they can open up, let each other in more, maybe take things more seriously instead of wanting to but always hurting each other cause the other won't say what they want to say.  
  
Except that Pogue's birthday comes, and he and Caleb are using too much, and Kate can't make herself be as quiet ( _compliant_ ) about it as Sarah is. Kate doesn't try manipulation and subtlety with this, because this is _big_ , and she still isn't even used to it.  
  
She and Pogue don't speak after that for two weeks.  
  
"I am done with boys!" she'd shouted after the fight, slamming the door and angrily venting to Sarah's willing ears. But by the end of it she was whispering with a strained voice while fighting back tears.  
  
Because it scares her. Just like it scares Sarah.  
  
Not just the magic, the rude awakening, the fact facing them that the supernatural does exist.  
  
And not only that Pogue and Caleb and their friends have this secret life, and anyone who's in it for the long haul will have so many secrets too.  
  
Not even just the looming, lingering fear and trauma of having been used by a psychotic magic junkie and put in comatose states of helplessness where their lives were on the line, and they didn't even know it.  
  
It's all of those things. And it's watching the ones you love wasting their lives away, using up days and weeks and months (and years) simply because they can. It's watching them self-destruct and spiral out while laughing and horsing around like there's nothing wrong.  
  
It's watching and trying to tell them that they're hurting themselves. That they have a problem, an addiction, and it will cost them.  
  
And they just don't listen.  
  
"From now on, I'm dating older guys. Responsible guys." She'd wiped her tears away before they could really fall, and curled up on Sarah's bed, her back against Sarah's side. "You should, too."  
  
It might hurt less.

* * *

"I'm through with men altogether!" Kate sobs into her pillow while Sarah strokes her hair. There's a bruise on her wrist from when the professor grabbed her, tried to make her stay and explain that he didn't mean to lead her on, didn't mean to make her think she was the only one.  
  
There's blood on her knuckles from when she punched him in the mouth for trying to feed her bullshit.  
  
"They're all selfish assholes! And bigger sluts than women are, no matter what they say!"  
  
Sarah gently eases her friend over more and settles down behind her, her side to Kate's back. "I know," is all she says. And she does know, but not personally; not in the same way Kate knows. Her relationship with Caleb is strained, but infidelity isn't one of their problems.  
  
"And maybe it's karma coming around to bite me in the ass because of Chase, and maybe I was stupid to fall for a professor, but it's not fair. It never happens to guys." She's sniffling now, face no longer buried in the pillow but simply laying on it. "They just go on and screw whoever they like, and nobody cares, cause they're guys, and that's what they do."  
  
"I know," and this she does, because she remembers the girls at Boston Public laughing at her and the guys making lewd gestures because she had sex on the second date. Nevermind that the guy was two years older and way more experienced.  
  
"I just want him to call," she says so softly that Sarah almost misses it. Kate stares at the wall and repeats the words; "I just want him to call me."  
  
Sarah squeezes her friend's shoulder and doesn't say anything, because she doesn't know.  
  
Not yet anyway.

* * *

They have girls' nights in and girls' nights out a lot, and if Caleb minds he doesn't show it. They eat ice cream and then go for jogs the following mornings, in the early hours of grey before sunrise. They have drinks and ride home in cabs, giggling and mocking their classmates they dislike.  
  
Kate doesn't go out on her own or with any boys - or men. She studies whenever Sarah leaves to be with Caleb, and when Sarah gets back she doesn't show any sign of resentment.  
  
Maybe a little envy, every now and then.  
  
And Sarah tries to talk Caleb into talking to Pogue, and when that doesn't work she talks to Pogue herself. She won't break her friend's confidence, but she can still imply that she thinks Kate misses him. She can still try to help.  
  
But Pogue is too busy with his motorcycle, or with the boys, or chasing one night stands - and Sarah knows that he gets congratulations whenever he scores, not shaming looks. He's too busy using his powers to do little things, big things, stupid things.  
  
Caleb's the same sometimes. Most of the time.  
  
Sarah wonders if she should have listened to Kate.  
  
Sometimes when she goes to Caleb's estate, she catches his mother's gaze from the study, and there's a look in them that makes her heart sink; 'I've been where you are, and I am where you'll be if you stay.'  
  
Is she going to have Caleb tucked away in an old house, decrepit and alone save for some diligent caretaker? If she leaves, will his mother be forced to do with her son what she did with her husband?  
  
No, Sarah thinks he would find someone else.  
  
Caleb, even now, is easy to fall for. He would find someone new, and they could carry on his bloodline and family curse, and they could hire a caretaker to keep him alive while he withered away an old man in his forties and fifties.  
  
Sarah wonders if maybe Kate is better off without Pogue.

* * *

"He asked me to marry him."  
  
Kate's eyes go wide, and she smears her nail polish over her pinky. "What?"  
  
Sarah fidgets on her bed, back against the wall and knees pulled to her chest. "He proposed tonight."  
  
"And?"  
  
And she froze up. And she stared and gaped and stuttered and blinked and opened and closed her mouth several times with no words coming out.  
  
"I told him I needed to think about it."  
  
Kate sets the nail polish on her bedside table and comes over to Sarah's bed. "How'd he take it?" The hand with dry polish moves to her shoulder, ready to give comfort.  
  
Sarah feels a smile tug at her mouth, and lets it come; she isn't happy, but the support makes her feel more loved than the surprise question and ring combo at dinner did. She leans over and melts when Kate pulls her close and guides Sarah's head to her shoulder.  
  
"He said I didn't have faith in him. And that I didn't want to say yes because I'm afraid I'll wind up like his mother," she says; she starts off calm, but by the end of it she's crying. "And I couldn't tell him he was wrong, I couldn't lie." She clenches her burning eyes shut and clings to Kate as the other girl rocks her and strokes her hair.  
  
"I know," she says, and Sarah knows that she does.  
  
And it's silly that this is what is messing their lives up instead of the fact that they were used to hurt those they love, or the fact that magic and the supernatural exist, or any of that life altering stuff that they've been dealing with. But maybe this is what they focus on, these love life struggles, because despite certain circumstances, it's normal.  
  
It's not a challenge to reality to break up or have commitment fears or want someone to love you more than they do or be afraid to love someone who's careless with themselves.  
  
"I just wish things were _normal_ again," Sarah says.  
  
"I know." Kate certainly does.


End file.
